Simon Turner had ridden late into the night and from before dawn; with remorseless fury he had goaded on his exhausted horse, he had driven him with unpitying strength through coverts, over great rocks, down into rocky canyons in search of Bruce and Linda, and now, as the dawn broke, he thought that he had found them. He had suddenly come upon the tracks of Bruce's horse in the snow. If he had encountered them farther back, when the animal had been running wildly, he might have guessed the truth and rejoiced. No man would attempt to ride a horse at a gallop through that trailless stretch. But at the point he found the tracks most of the horse's terror had been spent, and it was walking leisurely, sometimes lowering its head to crop the shrubbery. The trail was comparatively fresh too; or else the fast-falling snow would have already obscured it. He thought that his hour of triumph was near. But it had come none too soon. And Simon--out of passion-filled eyes--looked and saw that it would likely bring death with it. He realized his position fully. The storm was steadily developing into one of those terrible mountain blizzards in which, without shelter, no human being might live. He was far from his home, he had no blankets, and he could not find his way. Yet he would not have turned back if he could. In all the manifold mysteries of the wilderness there was no stranger thing than this: that in the face of his passion Simon had forgotten and ignored even that deepest instinct, self-preservation. Nothing mattered any more except his hatred. No desire was left except its expression. The securing of the document by which Bruce could take the great estates from him was only a trifle now. He believed wholly within his own soul that the wilderness--without his aid--would do his work of hatred for him; and that by no conceivable circumstances could Bruce and Linda find shelter from the blizzard and live through the day. He could find their bodies in the spring if he by any chance escaped himself, and take the Ross-Folger agreement from them. But it was not enough. He wanted also to do the work of destruction. Even his own death--if it were only delayed until his vengeance was wreaked--could not matter now. In all the ancient strife and fury and ceaseless war of the wild through which he had come, there was no passion to equal this. The Killer was content to let the wolf kill the fawn for him. The cougar will turn from its warm, newly slain prey, in which its white fangs have already dipped, at the sight of some great danger in the thickets. But Simon could not turn. Death lowered its wings upon him as well as upon his enemy, yet the fire in his heart and the fury in his brain shut out all thought of it. He sprang off his horse better to examine the tracks, and then stood, half bent over, in the snow. * * * * *